CAM RANH, Vietnam - The story sounds like a "Mission Impossible" script.
Fifty years ago, near the end of the Vietnam war as North Vietnamese troops headed south, the director of the Cam Ranh Christian Orphanage, Pastor Nguyen Xuan Ha - known to everyone as Mr. Ha - decided it was time to escape to somewhere safe. Mr. Ha put 85 children and staff on two buses and headed for Saigon where he hoped they could flee to safety.
One of the buses was shot at by a North Vietnamese soldier and the buses separated. Somehow they re-united in Saigon. After renting a boat and getting some distance from shore, the engine quit. For five days they drifted before a Thailand tanker approached. The captain refused to help, but later changed his mind, turned around and towed them for a while. After cutting the tow line, a group of fishermen towed them toward Singapore.
Soldiers refused to let them ashore. Mr. Ha wrote a name on a piece of paper and asked a soldier if he could locate a missionary named Ralph Neighbour to help.
Dr. Neighbour (now 96), and newly arrived in Singapore, was miraculously found. He picks up the story from there in an email to me: "Singapore government kept them out on St. John's island. Our missionary team took clothes and food out. USA embassy contacted Swiss United Nations Refugee Center. Special flight arrived. Children whisked thru Singapore on bus with windows covered. Government feared losing neutrality during war. No official record they were there."
I knew Dr. Neighbour from when he was a pastor in Houston where I worked at a local TV station. He called and asked if I could help get the orphans and staff to the U.S and find temporary housing for them. I contacted some Washington officials I knew and permission for them to enter the country was granted. When they arrived in Houston, a church couple with a large ranch offered them shelter and food until the Buckner Children and Family Services in Dallas could assist with processing and adoptions.
I interviewed the youngest, oldest and one in between who made the anniversary trip.
Sam Schrade, who was a baby when he was rescued from the streets of Saigon, is 51 and owns a successful media business in Houston. How would his life have been different had he stayed in Vietnam? He says the fact that he is of "mixed race" (American-Asian) would make it "doubly hard" because native Vietnamese "look down upon such people. I have been told by many people I would not have had a good life here because of the race issue and a government that didn't want me."
Kelli St. German, now 56, thinks she might have been growing coffee beans and doing hard labor had she not come to America. She also believes she would not have developed a strong faith because of the state's antipathy toward religion. "I became a teacher for 30 years."
Thomas Ho, the oldest orphan, now 76, was 25 when he left Vietnam. He helped organize the evacuation and prepared small amounts of food for the children. In America he became a chef and then studied to become an engineer. He says if he had stayed in Vietnam, "I might not have survived, especially at my age now. Life here is very difficult. A lot of the food is not very healthy."
Reuniting with these adults, many of whom I met when they were children, is a reminder that there are things far greater than politics, celebrities and the petty jealousies that are the focus of too many of us.
There are few greater blessings than to have had a role in changing these lives for the better. These former orphans are blessed. So am I.
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